Wednesday, 8 June 2022
Austroads has published a new edition of the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers introducing sections on the fundamentals of safety barrier systems and design advice for other road safety devices. The publication is accompanied by a report documenting the background to the changes.
“Austroads Guide to Road Design seeks to assimilate the contemporary road design practice of member organisations, providing guidance to designers that supports them in designing safe roads. Guide to Road Design Part 6 focuses on hazard identification and risk mitigation processes in the roadside. This updated edition has new sections on the installation of road safety barrier systems and roadside safety devices,” said Michael Nieuwesteeg, Austroads Road Safety and Design Program Manager.
A new Section 5 provides experienced road designers and those new to the field with fundamentals and principles for the evaluation and installation of road safety barrier systems. The section introduces a new way of assessing the performance of a barrier. It introduces new performance concepts of barrier flexibility and working width which gives an improved understanding over the current measurements of deflection and body roll.
Section 7 presents new guidance on the design and installation of roadside safety devices such as frangible poles, masts and signposts, permanent and security bollards, high-profile kerbs and low-profile barriers, traversable culvert end treatments and audio tactile line marking.
Sections 4 and 6 have been updated. Section 4 concentrates on treatment options for various hazards, including trees, drains, traffic signal poles, embankment slopes and other hazards. This section describes effectiveness of treatment options in terms of risk reduction on existing and new roads. Section 6 explains the process of designing a safety barrier installation. It leads the reader through the basic steps of defining the context of the road and the barrier installation, the preliminary design stage, the detailed design stage, and the documentation.
The research underpinning the new information, concepts and processes included in the Guide is detailed in the report Development of Edition 4.0 of the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers. The document may assist engineers and designers who are required to write a design exception report on a change discussed in the publication.
Download the new edition of the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers.
Join us for two webinars with authors Rod Troutbeck and Richard Fanning for a detailed overview of the changes.
Changes and New Elements of the Guide to Road Design Part 6 on 26 July 2022, 1 pm, will cover the new structure of Part 6 focusing on sections 4, 5 and 6.
Using the New Edition of the Guide to Road Design Part 6 on 2 August 2022, 1 pm, will provide an overview of the process in Section 6 to design the installation of a safety barrier.
No charge but registration is essential.
Can’t make the live sessions? Register and we’ll send you a link to the recordings.